Burnout Paradise

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It seems every racing game is embracing the current generation of consoles by sticking a massive free-roaming world into their previously linear framework, but Burnout Paradise looks truly standout.

Developer Criterion promises the next instalment's sunny island will be both brimming with things to do behind the wheel and incredibly accessible to any type of gamer (it's got no loading and no front-end whatsoever). Oh yeah, there's lots of crashing as well. But we don't want to talk about that.

We recently sat down with Paradise's producer Nick Channon. Here's what he had to say, ahead of our first hands-on impressions.

You've taken a lot more time to develop this Burnout than with previous instalments. What do you think that means for expectations for the game and do you think it'll be able to live up to the hype?

Nick Channon: We've been going for almost two years. The expectation is always going to be high for a Burnout game, we don't get away from that, it doesn't matter how long it's been in development.

The expectation is always huge and actually there's no-one who puts in more expectation than ourselves; we push ourselves massively to make a great game and each one has to be an evolution of the last.

That's why we threw everything away. We started from scratch. There's no code in there that was taken from Revenge, it's all been started from the beginning. To hit those expectations that's what we had to do. To make a truly next-gen product we couldn't be limited by things we did before.

So the first thing was we needed to make sure everything felt right and it played like Burnout, which hopefully you'll agree it does.

Then it gave us the flexibility to do very innovative things; you've seen the online, how easy it is to get online. It's very important to us to make a social game with your friends. We think that's the future of online and what it should be.

And then seamless gameplay. There's no loading, there's no front-end. We really set the bar high - those are the goals we setup from the beginning. You're never taken out of the world and online had to be a huge part of everything we do.

In terms of time and everything, everyone always expects a great Burnout so there's massive pressure anyway.

How have you made sure getting rid of the front-end and menus doesn't make the game less accessible to average gamers?

Channon: Fundamentally the game is Burnout and that really appeals to the hardcore fans and obviously the game gets progressively harder which is going to appeal to them. But I actually think it's more accessible than any Burnout before because you can go and do anything at your pace.

I give my wife as an example. She won't really play games. She quickly comes last and she's like 'what's the point? I'm not going to win'. But with Burnout she can go and explore the world for an hour and get a feel for the car and then go and do an event when she's ready.

That's when the game becomes very accessible because you can go and do events when you're ready and if you're not ready there's loads to do on the side.

So you still get a very rewarding experience but you can make progression at your pace. I think that's very important and that's what makes it even more accessible than the previous games.

Everyone seems to be leading on Xbox 360. Why did you decide to make the PS3 your main SKU for Burnout?

Channon: We've always led on the Sony platforms. Historically at Criterion we've always done that and we didn't want this year to be any different. We've always loved Sony machines and we've loved PS3 from the start, we think it's a fantastic machine. We felt very strongly about that.

So from the beginning we were always going to lead on PS3 and our transition between the two machines has been really seamless and straight-forward, where as other people have lead on 360 and found it hard to get on PS3.

We've had none of those problems. We really like 360 and if you get the opportunity to play it the two versions are exactly the same. I think we've really reaped the benefits of leading on PS3 because of that.

Why do you think most developers are making Xbox 360 the focus platform for their games? Is it just because it was out earlier?

Channon: Yeah, I guess. I don't know exactly why but maybe it was just because it was the first one out and developers got to know that technology.

Ultimately you get better at making these games the better you know the technology and I think sadly we're nowhere near hitting the limit of the power of the PS3. We'll continue to push it harder and harder. That's simply because of knowledge.

What kind of advantages has leading on PS3 given you in terms of exploiting that specific hardware?

Channon: We haven't got any legacy code from current platforms. It was a huge risk getting rid of everything and it's not always the best thing to do, but in this case it has been because it's a huge step up from last-gen.

We've been able to create things specifically for these machines. That's what's helped us the most. Obviously it's taken a little bit longer and it's been quite hard in terms of getting to know the tech, but because we've been doing it specifically for next-gen that's why we've reaped the benefits.

Of course free-roaming worlds in racing games is far from new now. What makes Burnout any different from your Test Drives and your Midnight Clubs?

Channon: Fundamentally we've filled the world with tons of very cool things to do - it's packed. The great thing is that all these things you have to find have a real meaning in the game modes that we've put in.

In Marked Man and Stun Run you have to know the city and you have to know the back alleys to get the most out of those events. We've built the world with those events in mind.

The fact that you can go anywhere and do anything at any time is something that we're very proud of with Burnout. We don't force you to do anything. There's no story forcing you to do this, this, this and this. You go and do it whenever you want.

And you're not worried about the masses of stuff to do intimidating players?

Channon: No, not at all. I think the game's really accessible, we have a really good tutorial in there that teaches you all the core elements of the game as you play. We've spent a lot of time on that because, to your point, the game is incredibly different and we've done a lot of testing to make it very clear what you're supposed to do.

It's clear then you're taking accessibility seriously, but on the other end of the scale what does Paradise have to offer hardcore fans?

Channon: The difficulty ramp is very similar to previous games, we didn't want to change that. It becomes really challenging towards the end. As you saw in an end-game demo of Road Rage it had up to 30 takedowns and in Marked Man most cars are incredibly aggressive.

Like with previous Burnouts, the first few events are quite easy and then they get progressively harder, that's no different here. I think it's very accessible to play just by roaming around and getting a feel for the game, but for the experienced Burnout gamer that progression is still going to feel like it has in the past.

The camera features are really cool. How did you come up with those?

Channon: In the past we may have just moved a PS2 game up to 360, but now we've made a game specific for next-gen. Part of that was using all the tech that we could and we felt that the cameras were so cool and underused.

We felt that with the features that we were putting in it could be really innovative. The fact that we're doing social gaming and playing with you friends, that was just a great extension of expressing that.

The cameras really lent themselves well in the fact that if you're playing with your friends, showing your crash face, showing your face when you've won is a great extension of that feature. Certainly I think it's going to help push camera because it's such a cool, fun feature.

There's research at the moment investigating whether or not driving games make you a better driver in real life. What's your stance on that?

Channon: From Burnout's point of view, we create a fun arcade experience, we don't create a simulation. So Burnout is all about doing things that you'd never do in the real world, it fundamentally isn't. You're never going to do any of those things you do in our game out on the open road. That's just not what you should be doing.

From our point of view it's about allowing the game to be larger than life, giving a fun experience but it's not a simulation in any way. I think that's gives us the ability to have fun with what we do and that's absolutely what we do with Burnout.

The driving has to feel like a real car, the drifting has to feel right, it has to feel very responsive but the things that you do in that game you're never going to do in real life. It's a videogame and nothing more.

Building a whole new game from scratch was a big risk and certainly a departure from previous Burnout efforts. What have you learnt from that experience?

Channon: If you look at the current suite of platforms - PS3, 360, Wii and DS - you just can't make the same game across those platforms. That's a real change. In the past that's been possible. Fundamentally the games have to be very different.

On 360 and PS3 that games can be the same but on Wii and DS they have to be very different. We couldn't put Burnout Paradise onto those platforms as it stands right now.

That's changed massively. You have to have different teams working on those games to make the perfect game for those platforms. That's something as a company EA is taking very seriously. If you look at Playground and look at Boogie they're very different from platform to platform.

So it'd be fair to say you're looking at different avenues for Burnout on Wii and DS?

Channon: We'll see. All I'm saying is we couldn't put Burnout Paradise as it stands on PS3 and 360 onto those platforms.

Andy Robinson